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The
Neuropsychology
of
Facial
Recognition
ARTHUR
L.
BENTON
University
of
Iowa
ABSTRACT:
Knowledge
of the
neiiropsychological
mechanisms
underlying
facial
recognition
has
come
from
both
experimental
study
of
normal
subjects
and
clinical
investigation
of
patients
who
show
defects
in
facial
perception
or
memory.
A
basic
difference
exists
between
the
identification
of the
faces
of
familiar per-
sons
and the
discrimination
of
unfamiliar
faces.
De-
fects
in
these
two
forms
of
facial
recognition
have
different
anatomical
correlates,
and a
patient
with
brain
disease
may
show
one
type
of
impairment
and
not the
other.
The
right
hemisphere
appears
to
play
a
primary
role
in
mediating
both
forms
of
facial
recognition.
However,
there
is
evidence
to
indicate
that
left-hemisphere
mechanisms
are
also
involved
in
facial
perception
and
memory
and
that
the
relative
contribution
of
each
hemisphere
to the
process
may
vary
among
individuals.
The
psychological aspects
of
facial
recognition
and
memory
have engaged
the
attention
of
researchers
for
decades,
and
interest
in the
topic
seems
to be
stronger than ever. Over
the
course
of the
last
few
years,
a
substantial
number
of
papers
have
been
published dealing with such questions
as the
nature
of the
perceptual mechanisms underlying
facial
recognition,
the
amount
of
information con-
veyed
by
inspection
of
faces,
the
saliency
of
dif-
ferent
facial
features,
and
the
recognition
of
faces
by
infants.
No
doubt
the
basic reason
for
this
interest
is
that
our
capacity
to
identify
and re-
member
individuals
from
perception
of
their faces
is
an
intriguing
and
still rather mysterious phe-
nomenon.
There
are,
of
course, hundreds
of
persons
we
have seen
on
many occasions whom
we
readily
identify
when
we see
them again.
In
these
in-
stances
our
instant recognition
may be
ascribed
to
overlearning,
although
I am not
sure
that
this
provides
a
complete explanation.
But
there
are
also hundreds
of
persons whom
we see on
only
one
occasion,
or
perhaps once every
two or
three years
(e.g.,
at an APA
convention)
and
whom
we
recog-
nize
immediately
on a
subsequent occasion.
In-
deed, small photographs
of
their
faces
are
suf-
ficient
for
instant identification.
To be
sure,
not all the
faces
we
encounter once
176 •
FEBRUARY
1980
•
AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST
Copyright
1980
by the
American
Psychological
Association, Inc.
0003-066X/80/3S02-0176S00.7S
or
twice
are
subsequently recognized.
No
doubt
the
great majority
of
them
are
forgotten. What
is
remarkable
is
that
so
many
of
them
are
remem-
bered.
A
person
we
have seen
on one or two
occa-
sions
may be
accurately
identified after
the
passage
of
many years
and in
spite
of all too
obvious age-
related changes
in
facial features. Somehow
or
other
our
memory schema takes account
of
these
changes
in the
plastic
features
of the
face
and
enables
us to
perceive those invariant
features
that
give
the
face
its
individuality. What
the
schema
is
less
well
prepared
to
cope
with
are the
gross
changes
in
appearance created
by a
beard
or by
radical
plastic surgery.
In
these instances there
is
often
a
failure
of
recognition,
at
least
of
instant
recognition.
A
persistent
and as yet
unresolved question
concerns
how we
encode
the
information provided
by
inspection
of a
face
so
that
the
information
can
be
placed
in a
memory
store.
The
role
of
verbal
encoding
per se is not
clear,
but it
does
not
seem
likely
that
it
furnishes
the
primary
mechanism
of
storage.
How
then
is a
face
encoded?
The
ques-
tion remains
to be
resolved. Another question
still being addressed
by
empirical research concerns
the
basic strategy underlying
facial
perception.
The
serial detection
of
salient
features
such
as the
eyes, nose,
and
lips
is
certainly
one
mechanism.
But the
fact
that
we are
capable
of
successful
high-
speed
identification
of a
face
even when
we
appre-
hend only
a
partial
aspect
of
it—-for
example,
a
profile,
only
the
lower part,
a
picture taken under
unusual
lighting
conditions,
or
even
a
caricature—
argues
for its
gestalt-like
apprehension
via a
paral-
lel
processing mechanism.
This
article
was the
address
of the
recipient
of the
Distinguished
Professional'
Contribution
Award
at the
meeting
of the
American
Psychological
Association,
New
York,
September
2,
1979.
The
personal investigations
described
in
this
article
were
supported
by
Research Grant
NS-00616
from
the
National
Institute
of
Neurological
Disorders
and
Stroke.
Requests
for
reprints should
be
sent
to
Arthur
Benton,
Department
of
Neurology, University
Hospitals,
Iowa
City,
Iowa
52242.
Vol.
35,
No. 2,
176-186
